Advent Midweek II

Advent Midweek II: “Be Strong! My Spirit Remains In Your Midst”

December 11, 2024

Text: Haggai 2:1-9

            Temples and Church buildings preach.  They can’t help but preach.  Every Church building preaches something of what the people who gather in it believe about God (or, at least, what they once believed, when the building was built), what is important to them, what is central in their theology.  You know this instinctively.  Consider a big box Church building with theater seating, a stage (often without a cross), screens, maybe a podium front and center, and oftentimes a rock band.  What do you know about their theology?  What does the building preach?  First of all, that a Church is like a Wal-Mart or a WinCo.  Consumer culture.  You choose your preferred shopping center.  If you don’t like this one, move on to the next.  Second, because we want you to choose us over the other guys, your comfort, from the cushy seats, to the omission of any possibly offensive visuals (the cross, the crucifix), is paramount.  Third, what is on the stage?  What is important?  Not Sacraments (no altar!).  Not Christ crucified (as we said, no cross!).  Maybe a Bible (okay, that’s good, but what will be said about it?  Will it be read and preached as the power of God unto salvation [Rom. 1:16], or simply as wisdom for daily life, tips on how to improve this or that aspect of your life, etc.?).  Screens and a rock band suggest that you’re in the right place for entertainment.  And the podium, or the guy in skinny jeans with the microphone meandering the stage?  He’s the star of the show.  He’s hip.  He’s cool.  And now we’ve got it.  This is all about his personality inspiring us to be better people.  Or, more likely, affirming that we already are better people for the sheer act of being here.

            Several of us recently visited the Genesee Valley Lutheran Church on old 95.  Now, that building preaches!  I don’t claim to know what the congregation in Genesee currently believes, but I can tell you what was important to those who built that Church, what was central to their theology.  Jesus Christ, present with His people in the Sacrament of the Altar.  The altar dominates the space.  It is a beautiful old-fashioned and ornate altar with gothic spired reredos, a life-sized statue of our Lord serving as the focal point of the whole building.  The building itself reaches toward heaven with its magnificent steeple, but Christ is down here with us.  Add in the substantial pulpit, accentuating God’s holy Word while minimizing and containing the preacher, as well as the baptismal font (which, in past visits, I’ve seen front and center, that through which you must pass to enter the altar space and receive the Supper) and…  That’s it.  That’s biblical, Lutheran theology.

            This building we’re in now, originally a Lutheran Church, probably once preached all of that.  Now, this building has been through several denominations since, and sadly, someone gutted it.  Our hosts at All Souls have worked to beautify it, thanks be to God (let us never underestimate the importance of beauty in the things of God, one of the three transcendentals, as we call them: Goodness, Truth, and Beauty!), but they, also, have a non-sacramental theology, evident in the empty space of the chancel.  We do our best to fill it up with what we have, but our setup preaches we are a Church without a home, wandering in the wilderness, everything portable, pitching our tent where the LORD leads, but looking forward to a more permanent Temple.  And we have to keep that preaching before our eyes, and in our ears, because otherwise our setup may appear to preach that we are a Church of the good enough… That’s good enough for us.  That’s good enough for God.  It’s functional.  It’s economical.  Why expend our hard-earned money and our best efforts, when this is… good enough?  God spare us from that attitude, from that preaching.  But if we are doing our best with what we have, looking forward to a better future situation (if God so blesses, and it appears He is so blessing), then we are where the returning exiles found themselves, a mere 3 ½ weeks into taking up their tools once again.

            The returning exiles… especially the old folks who remembered Solomon’s Temple in all its glory, now destroyed… they wept, because they knew, in spite of their best efforts, that this new Temple fell far short.  “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory?  How do you see it now?  Is it not as nothing in your eyes?” (Hab. 2:3; ESV).  So the LORD speaks through His prophet.  “Yet now,” He says to Zerubbabel the governor, to Joshua the High Priest, and to the remnant of the people, “Be strong…” (v. 4).  He says it three times for emphasis, a number that I think not insignificant in the Bible.  Might this be a Trinitarian blessing?  “Work,” He says, and this is why you can be strong and work: “for I am with you” (v. 4), and “My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not” (v. 5).

            Here is the thing about the preaching of buildings…  Visual preaching, as valuable as it is, must, at some point, be clarified in words.  When the prophets acted out visual dramas, like Jeremiah wearing a wooden yoke, or Isaiah walking around naked, they also verbally had to answer the question, “what does this mean?”  When I ponder a painting, I may come to any number of conclusions about its meaning, but the very best (especially of Western) art has a very specific meaning intended by the artist, and my interpretation is either right or wrong depending on how close I come to his intended meaning.  So it helps when I read an explanation.  See, we cannot always leave beauty in the eye of the beholder.  The same is true of creation itself.  It has a meaning intended by God, the Creator.  “For [God’s] invisible attributes,” Paul says in Romans, “namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (2:20).  The interpretation of nature, also, is not in the eye of the beholder.  It has an objective meaning, but that meaning must be proclaimed by a preacher.  Otherwise, we may know God’s divinity and power, but we will never know, for example, that He loves us and has provided for our salvation by sending His Son, Jesus Christ. 

            So the returning exiles needed a preacher, to reveal God’s interpretation of their building project.  It’s okay that this building doesn’t match the visual splendor of the previous Temple.  Because this is a type, a foreshadowing, of a Glory with which even Solomon’s Temple, in all its splendor, was never arrayed.  I’m about to shake things up, God is saying… The heavens and the earth, land and sea, and all nations, because, “I will fill this house with glory” (Hag. 2:7).  The Glory of the LORD that departed Solomon’s Temple in Ezekiel 11… in other words, the departure of God, present as He had been with Israel… that Glory will now return.  God will be present once again, in this new Temple.  Well, you know how that happens, right?  Jesus comes into this Temple.  It happens about 500 years later.  As we heard last week, for the purification of Mary and His redemption as firstborn (Luke 2:22-40).  As we heard this week, Jesus sitting among the teachers in His Father’s House (vv. 41-52).  And every other time He entered the Temple since.  And He (Jesus) supersedes it.  The Temple, as it turns out, was always and only a foreshadowing of Him.  Jesus of Nazareth is the dwelling place of God with Israel, and with all nations, all who believe in Him.  He is God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us.  And He is the Whole Burnt Offering, the Paschal Lamb, and the Sacrifice of Atonement for our sins, and for the sins of the whole world.  The Temple is fulfilled in Jesus.  “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).  “[H]e was speaking about the temple of his body” (v. 21).

            By the mouth and pen of the preacher, God was able to show the exiles that the structure they were building preaches that.  Now, don’t worry about money, He says.  After all, “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine” (Hag. 2:8).  Give what you have, and give generously, but just see what I’ll do with it.  “The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts.  And in this place I will give peace,” Shalom, “declares the LORD of hosts” (v. 9).  Healing.  Wholeness.  Wellness.  The Peace of sins forgiven on account of Christ.  The Peace that is Christ.  The Peace of the Lord that is with you always.  The Peace He puts upon you with His presence and favor in the Benediction. 

            What the prophet preaches to them, then and there, he also preaches to you, here and now.  It’s okay that we’re here, now, in a borrowed building, with a portable setup (though, let’s never settle for good enough).  The Israelites, after all, had their ram skin Tabernacle in the wilderness, complete with carrying staves for the Tent and all the furnishings.  But, as God gives to us, let’s build.  A building that preaches!  Christ crucified for us.  Christ risen for us.  Christ present with us in His Word, and in the Sacrament of His body and blood.  Christ birthing and bathing us in the Font of Holy Baptism.  Christ bespeaking our sins forgiven, breathing His Spirit upon us and into us, giving us life.  Let’s build a building that preaches all of that.  Be strong.  Work, God says.  Fear not.  For I am with you (Jesus, Emmanuel).  And My Spirit remains in your midst, building you together into a dwelling place for God (Eph. 2:22).  Beloved, fearlessly take up your God-given tools, and get busy.

            And… I say this, hopefully, not entirely selfishly… keep a preacher on hand to tell you what this means.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.